NEWTON -- Voters will have final say at the polls in March on a compromise solution to the Peanut Trail dispute, which has dragged on for five years and cost the town more than $100,000 in legal fees.

The deal was worked out over the weekend in mediation between selectmen and the owners of Nicol Farm.

After the farm owners filed suit in 2001 after years of complaining about off-highway vehicle riders straying from the trail and vandalizing their crops and machinery, a judge awarded the town ownership of the trail and gave the farmers $400,000 for past and future damages.

Last summer, a Rockingham County Superior Court judge awarded the town ownership of the trail, and the farm owners were awarded $400,000 for past and future damages. But the town's insurance carrier claimed the award was excessive, and appeals and cross-appeals were filed.

The terms of the new compromise agreement, which will go to voters as a warrant article, specify that:
The New Hampshire Municipal Association Property Liability Trust -- the town's insurance carrier -- will pay $340,000 to the Nicol Farm owners. That represents a reduction from the $460,000 that was due to farm owners from the $400,000 they were awarded in the original court decision in June, 2003, plus $60,000 in interest which has accrued since the case was filed six years ago.

The town has agreed to sell its interests in the Peanut Trail to the owners of Nicol Farm for $65,000 and their agreement to a "hold harmless agreement" from the farm to protect the town from any future lawsuits over damage caused by people who access the farm from any adjacent land the town owns.

"That is very significant for us because the town no longer has any insurance for this type of claim. The insurance coverage not only for the town, but statewide, has been canceled for this type of coverage," selectmen Chairman Stephen Cushing said.

The insurance company has agreed to drop its appeal to the Supreme Court of the original $400,000 award made to the farm owners in Superior Court. The farm owners have agreed to drop a counter appeal to the Supreme Court decision over ownership of the trail made to the town in Superior Court. The town has agreed to drop its suit against the N.H. Municipal Association Property Liability Trust, filed to protest the trust's decision to appeal the amount of the court's financial award.

The Nicol Family partnership which represents farm owners Raymond Nicol and his sister, Michele Nicol Fitzgerald, filed a lawsuit in 2001 after the town failed to authorize selectmen to negotiate a settlement and reroute the trail, which could have eliminated a problem of off-highway recreational vehicle riders straying onto hay fields and vandalizing crops and machinery. Instead the town voted to ask selectmen to fight for the Peanut Trail land. The trail follows a 50-foot right-of-way the town purchased along an abandoned railroad spur, which begins off Whittier Street in Newton Junction and crosses Route 108.

The Peanut Trail was named for the trains which once carried carriage bodies and later car bodies along a spur of the railroad from a plant on the Massachusetts side of the line. Covered with large canvas tarpaulins, they resembled giant peanuts.

Last summer, a Rockingham County Superior Court judge awarded the town ownership of the trail, and the farm owners were awarded $400,000 for past and future damages.

The town's insurer appealed the amount of the award to the State Supreme Court, the Nicols appealed the ownership decision and the town filed a suit against its insurer saying the appeal could expose the town to greater financial loss.

All three parties agreed last month to go to mediation to try to negotiate a settlement. Costs of mediation were paid by the town's insurer. Cushing said the suit has cost the town over $100,000 in the past five years.

"To think the town will get $65,000 back -- more than half our legal costs -- by selling the trail while guaranteeing we will be protected from any additional claims in the future is a good compromise, when it could have been so costly for us," said Cushing.

"The nature of a compromise is that nobody is terribly happy with it, but I think this is a better solution than we would have ended up with by going through the appeals process, or we would not have agreed, " said Selectman Mary P. Marshall.

Farm owner Ray Nicol, of Amesbury Road, said he will wait and see what happens at the town deliberative session and at the polls. "We all compromised to come to a kind of mid-ground plan. I am hoping this will get the support of the town so we can avoid some future costs." Voters will have a chance to ask questions about the compromise at the town's deliberative session which will be Feb, 3 at 7 p.m. at Sanborn Middle School.